


Trashmouth Tries To Clean Up His Language

by limezest



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: And The Rest of The Losers Club But They're All Minor Charcters, Angst, Confessions, M/M, One Sided Pining But Not Really, Rated Teen Because It's Literally Centered Around Cursing, So They Definitely Say "Fuck" More Than Once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 17:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21377521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limezest/pseuds/limezest
Summary: “You couldn’t stop cursing if your fucking life depended on it, Trashmouth.”In attempts to get Richie to swear less, the Losers hold a no-cursing competition.  Richie tries to get Eddie out using some methods that are unconventional, to say the least.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 7
Kudos: 82





	Trashmouth Tries To Clean Up His Language

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to [Taylor7304](/users/%5Btaylor7304%5D/) for always being an amazing friend and listening to all my fic ideas. I love her a ton and she writes some really cool stuff, including an IT groupchat fic, that you should check out!!

“My hands weren’t a problem for your mom last night!” Richie’s shrieked retort to Eddie’s comment on his dirt-smeared hands attracts the attention of a very offended mother who casts a disgruntled look their way before leading her daughter away from the Losers. Bill watches this with a tight face and lets out a long sigh.

“Richie, could you try and tone down the cursing a little?” Bill begs, sealing his statement with a pleading look.

“Anything for you Big Bill,” Richie responds with a sleazy grin that results in a scoff from Eddie. Richie twists to face him and tilts his head in question, prompting an indignant response.

“You couldn’t stop cursing if your fucking life depended on it, Trashmouth.”

Richie lets out a dramatic gasp and speaks in what’s likely meant to be an imitation of a princess, but sounds more like a drunk elf, “I can’t believe the betrayal! Eds-”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Eddie interjects, but Richie simply raises the volume of his voice and plows on.

“I have never said a single swear word in my entire life.” Eddie instantly opens his mouth to deny this as Mike senses the brewing fight, stepping between the two and placing a hand on each of their shoulders.

“How about we settle this with a competition? First one to curse loses?” Mike glances back and forth between Richie and Eddie, who both seem fairly sated by the suggestion and excited at the chance to win.

“Wait a second, I want in on this.” Bev says, “and to make it a little more interesting, let's include some prizes. The rest of you want in?” Bev motions to the remaining Losers who are understandably put off by the devilish gleam in her eye, but resign themselves regardless. Ben agrees first, then Bill and Mike, and finally Stan reluctantly nods solely to avoid being the odd man out.

“Sweet!” Bev declares. “Let’s get this shit started.” 

An hour of arguing (and many insults peppered with soon to be banned words and terrible nicknames from Richie) results in a set of rules printed onto a sheet of paper in Ben’s shaky handwriting. The Losers agreed on punishments for the first three to curse, corresponding to the final three. The first to lose had to share their deepest secret with the third winner, the second had to take a dare from the second winner, and the third had to buy the first winner a ticket for a movie at the Aladdin.

“Okay,” Ben stated as formally as he could, “competition starts in three,”

Bev and Eddie both say a quick stream of swears.

“Two,”

Mike lets out a singular “fuck.”

“One.”

Everyone was still for a second before Richie broke the silence with a very confident “I’ve got this one in the fucking bag.” He pales instantly. “Shit.”

Three more of the Losers drop by the time they have to start heading home for dinner. Bev loses to the worthy cause of telling Bowers to ‘suck her dick and choke.’ Bill gets out with a deeply stuttered ‘fuck’ after spilling a full bottle of Coke down the front of his shirt, and Ben loses for cursing after tripping over a branch in the Barrens. Somehow Eddie manages to hold out despite Richie’s best efforts.

“Richie lay off, would you?” Eddie swats away Richie’s hands as he attempts to pinch his cheeks for what’s got to be the twentieth time that day. 

“Never! I may have lost, but I refuse to go down alone!” Eddie groans while Richie grins blindingly, causing Eddie to blink a little bit.

“Fucking get him, Richie.” Bev high fives Richie in support before turning to face Stan and Mike. “That felt great! Bet you assholes wish you could chime in, huh?” Stan just shakes his head nonchalantly.

“I can still talk normally, you know.” Mike points out, causing Bev to frown and mutter something about ‘stupid logic.’

“Mike, my dear fellow, you’re my next target after Eddie Spaghetti caves.” Richie points to Mike with one hand and drags the other across his throat before turning and slinging his arm around Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie tenses for a second, before leaning ever so slightly into the touch.

“We’ll see you guys tomorrow, or at least I will,” Eddie says to the group and makes a face at Richie. “Can’t promise I won’t end up killing Richie if he keeps this up.”

“And deprive your mother of her lover?” Richie leans closer to Eddie, only to be shoved off with a disgusted groan. Bev laughed, causing Eddie to roll his eyes and flip her off before helping Richie to his feet. As soon as he hit his feet, Richie attempted to pinch Eddie’s cheeks, causing him to run towards the bikes. Richie took a second to follow, giving the other boy a considerable head start.

Richie eventually caught up to Eddie, who was huffing in a worrying way for an asthmatic. 

“Jesus Eddie! Pull over before you give those precious little lungs of yours a death sentence!” Richie exclaimed, causing Eddie to glare but oblige and drift to the side of the road. Richie gripped the inhaler he kept in his pocket for emergencies and did his best not to panic as he waited for Eddie’s breathing to level out. After a tense minute, Eddie managed to regain an only vaguely raspy breathing pattern. 

“Yikes, I know I’m bad but you don’t have to kill yourself trying to get away from me,” Richie joked. Eddie let out a chuckle that was half a laugh and half a wheeze and shoved Richie’s shoulder. Richie reacted dramatically and fell to his back, hitting the concrete with a thump as he let his limbs flay out.

“Get up, idiot.” Eddie smiled as he nudged Richie’s leg with the tip of his shoe. Richie simply let his leg flop to the side instead of sitting back up.

“I’ve been wounded! Such betrayal!” Richie uttered without opening his eyes, causing Eddie to scoff. “I can only be revived by a kiss!”

“Richie quit being dumb and get up.” Richie refused to respond to Eddie and continued to lay motionless on the ground, so unusually still that for a second Eddie wondered if he had fallen asleep. Realizing that Richie wasn’t going to give in, Eddie sighed and leaned over to plant a soft kiss on his cheek that didn’t quite meet his mouth but also didn’t miss it entirely. He pulled back a little and hovered over Richie, who proceeded to flutter his eyes open and grin. 

Then to Eddie’s surprise, Richie lifted one of his hands and began to pull Eddie down again. He hesitated for a second until Eddie made a small urgent noise, prompting Richie to connect their lips in another kiss that was much deeper and more serious than the first. After about five seconds of blissful contact, Eddie pulled away and sat all the way up.  
“Hold on Richie, what the fuck?” Eddie’s head was swimming; he’d been harboring a thing for Richie for a while and had been hoping that under all the taunts and nicknames, Richie might have felt the same. Eddie was certain that he wanted to kiss Richie, but he was struggling to wrap his head around the suddenness of the whole thing. 

Then Richie snapped Eddie out of the fog.

“You’re out.” Richie wore a triumphant grin accentuated with a cocky tilt of his head. Eddie felt a wash of dread roll through him as his face began to burn. He shoved Richie into the ground and scrambled to his feet.

“You fucking asshole! You kissed me to make me curse! What kind of sick fuckhead does that?” Eddie yelled at Richie, his words tumbling out rapidly as he flailed his hands before finally settling on flipping Richie off. He stomped off to his bike and ripped it up to ride away.

“Eds, wait-” Richie was visibly pale and frantic, but Eddie cut him off before he could finish.

"Don’t you dare start with the stupid fucking nicknames right now! I can’t believe you! What the hell could you possibly have to say that would matter right now?” Richie just sat and stuttered before giving up and heaving his shoulders down while he shook his head. Eddie let out a scream of frustration and mounted his bike, pedaling away while Richie let his head fall into his hands and began to cry.

The next day, Eddie refused to leave his room, claiming a headache caused by noise so his mother would leave him alone. Around noon he heard Bill and Bev come to the door and ask his mother if Eddie was coming to the Barrens with them. He could hear the pure delight in Sonia’s voice as she said Eddie wasn’t coming out to play. She slammed the door in their faces and Eddie could barely make out their footsteps as they eventually gave up and retreated to their bikes.

Despite how furious he still was at Richie, Eddie still felt a pang of sadness when he realized Richie hadn’t come to check on him. Eddie slumped into his bed and suppressed a sob as he replayed the events of the night before in his head. He’d been fighting back against his crush on Richie for months, only for the idiot to kiss him as a joke. A joke! Eddie had been dumb enough to let himself think Richie might have actually been flirting with him and it was all just to rile him up. Unable to hold back the tears any longer, he smashed his face into his pillow and cried until he fell into a fitful sleep.

Eddie was stirred by a tap at his window. He glanced at his window and could almost make out a face in the dark. He grudgingly rolled out of bed and walked to the window, only to find Richie’s pleading face. Eddie muttered a curse and opened the window to tell Richie to get lost, but the other boy simply tumbled into the room once Eddie slid the glass up.

“What the fuck Richie?” Eddie scowled at the boy below him who was searching for his glasses that had slipped off during his fall. “Get the fuck out of my room, I don’t wanna talk to you.”

“You didn’t get your prize,” Richie said as he looked up at Eddie and slipped the glasses onto his face.

“What makes you think I give a fuck about that right now? You’ve been an ass and it's taking just about everything in me to not punt you right back out that window.”

“Look I know, and I’m so sorry,” Richie pleaded, surprising Eddie with an uncommonly serious expression. “I shouldn’t have kissed you and let you ride away thinking it was a joke-”

“Wait a second,” Eddie burst out, trying to press down the sudden swell in his chest as he reminded himself that he was mad at Richie. “Are you saying it wasn’t? A joke, that it wasn’t a joke, I mean?”

Richie gave him a soft smile before continuing. “Ah yes, my darkest secret that I’m supposed to tell you.” Richie accompanied the phrase with the most half-hearted jazz hands Eddie had ever seen. “I didn’t kiss you as a joke, I kissed you because I’ve got a massive fucking gay crush on you.” By the time he finished his confession, Richie was no longer looking at Eddie but instead at the ceiling as he unsuccessfully tried to blink back tears.

“I’m sorry you have a what on me?” Eddie stood dumbfounded as he tried to comprehend what Richie had just said.

“Don’t make me say it again,” Richie pleaded as the soft smile returned to his face. He began to stand up and make his way to the window when Eddie finally came to his senses and tackled him in a hug. Richie let out a soft noise of surprise and started to melt into the embrace before he suddenly tensed and tried to pull away. Eddie only held him tighter and took in a deep breath before he began to speak.

“You’re such a fucking idiot,” Eddie could feel Richie start to push away again and began speaking even faster than before. “I’ve wanted to kiss your stupid face for so long and I was fucking heartbroken when I thought you did it as a joke. And now you’re gonna tell me it was real all along! If I wasn’t so gone for you, I’d leave your ass for the mess you put me through.” 

Eddie pulled back from the hug to cup Richie’s face in his hands. He tilted his head up to smile at Richie, who mirrored Eddie’s expression of relief, before pushing up onto his tiptoes and kissing him. Richie’s glasses got in the way and he still tasted like tears, but Eddie couldn’t remember ever being more content than he felt with his lips pressed to Richie’s.

“I fucking love you, Eds.” Richie let his forehead rest against Eddie’s before leaning in to kiss him again.

“You’re out,” Eddie muttered softly, with no true malice behind the words. “But I love you too, Trashmouth and all.”

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't work it into the story, but in my head the last to lose after Eddie was Mike, then Stan.
> 
> The idea of a no cursing competition was based off one that my friends held because I can't stop saying fuck in front of teachers. It was supposed to last a day and I lost within twenty minutes because I saw a bee.
> 
> Comment below if you liked it, or spotted a way I could improve!!
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr!!](https://toziershawaiianshirts.tumblr.com/)


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